Thursday, August 27, 2009

Last night I headed out to San Francisco and the Borders at Union Square for a signing event with Kat Richardson.

It was a grand time. Kat read from her newest Harper Blaine novel Vanished. "The Funny Section," she called it.

Yep. Very funny. Can't wait to get to it.

Although I have to confess: I knew ofGreywalker and the rest of the series but they fell into my personal trap of taking note of a book/series, thinking "Hey! Cool book/series" but then promptly getting distracted by something else and forgetting.

Friday, August 21, 2009

I just finished The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bledsoe. Excellent mash-up of S&S and hard-boiled detective noir. Sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse takes on a case that forces him to dig up a tragic past in order to solve the present.

Bledsoe gives just the right touch of fantasy tale and detective story and the pairing works. I found his take on the mash-up easier to get through than the Garrett novels by Glen Cook or Simon Green's "Hawk and Fisher" series. The others were serviceable but I had to be in the right mood to read them.

(I'll admit here that I only read the first "Hawk and Fisher" novel and made it a quarter of the way through Sweet Silver Blues before I put it down.)

On the other hand, Sword-Edged Blonde drew me in easily and kept me there up to the last page.

And now, I turn to the 7th book in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, Dead Beat.

It's Harry vs. zombies.

Always an entertaining read, that Harry.

After that, I'll be picking up Greywalker by Kat Richardson.Saw this a while back when the cover illo caught my eye. (Hello! Chick with gun!)

Read the blurb, thought "Nice premise."

Then promptly didn't buy it. Dunno why.

Anyway, I see the series is at Book #4 so I have enough to keep me busy without having to wait impatiently untill the newest book comes out.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Jim Hines pointed to this SF Signal post about an SF anthology that's causing some ruckus among the SF/F community.

The beef with the book comes from the lack of women authors. Of the 21 listed stories, not a one is written by a female.

I stuck my nose into this one by commenting:

The emphasis of this anthology is on "stories that took unusual scientific concepts and developed them in even more unusual ways." (See the first comment to:http://silk-noir.livejournal.com/308817.html?thread=2622289)

My knowledge of current short fiction is severely lacking (I blame it on catching up with the Dresden Files, but I digress). Can those more learned out there provide a list of 20 or so stories by female authors and non-white-guy-authors which deal with unusual scientific concepts and develop them in even more unusual ways?Maybe if we pass over a goodly list to Mr. Ashley, he might create a sequel to this Mammoth Book? Call it "Another Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF" or "Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF II" or something.

And if Mr. Ashley is unable to create said sequel, maybe we can pool resources and publish a book in response to this. Call it "Beyond Mindblowing SF" or "Better Than Mammoth Mindblowing SF" or "Mindblowing? You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet."

Or even "The Other Mammoth Book..."

No reply yet to my list.

Based on the comments thus far in the SF Signal post and in the post I linked to in my comment, an anthology needs a representative sample of female writers in order to be acceptable to the SF/F populace.

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